Will Arnettawesomely smug on Arrested Developmentis right at home in Running Wilde, playing the kind of rich dick who throws lavish galas in his own honor.

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Despite how it might sound, Will Arnett is not about to play another Will Arnett role. You know the type: the stunted, spoiled, filthy-rich dumb-ass. Gob Bluth on Arrested Development. Devon Banks on 30 Rock. Countless jerk-offs in countless movies. But Arnett is adamant that Steve Wilde, the man at the center of Fox's Running Wilde, his new sitcom from Arrested creator Mitch Hurwitz, is different. Steve, you see, is a stunted, spoiled, filthy-rich dumb-ass…with a heart. The scion of a ruthless oil baron, Steve throws decadent parties to give himself humanitarian awards and competes with his neighbor/arch-nemesis over who can buy the teensiest, priciest miniature Arabian horse. But at his core, Steve is a sad-sack romantic, desperate to win back the hand of his childhood sweetheart, an always-saving-something environmentalist played by Felicity's Keri Russell. And as far as Arnett is concerned, this constitutes a reach. "I'm moving out of my comfort zone," he says, "and right into my wheelhouse."

There's a fine line between repeating yourself and carving out a niche—and Arnett knows how to walk it. (As Hurwitz puts it: "Will is like a child who's forced to act like a man wrapped in the body of a man who acts like a child.") Arnett's imbeciles resonate because they lampoon the distance between the stupidly rich and the rest of us, and that's a very "now" subject. Arnett, who's married to Parks and Recreation star Amy Poehler, grew up well-heeled in Toronto, hanging out with teenage Gob Bluths and Steve Wildes and getting himself thrown out of—sorry, "asked not to return" to—his elite private school. But he resists the idea that he's mining anything for his art. "Ultimately, maybe I'm just good at being a fool," he says. "Maybe that's just the sad reality. God, that's so depressing. Thanks for ruining my life."